Greek statues were made from. Sculpture of ancient greece briefly

As a rule, statues at that time were carved from limestone or stone, after which they were covered with paint and decorated with beautiful precious stones, elements of gold, bronze or silver. If the figurines are small, then they were made of terracotta, wood or bronze.

The sculpture of Ancient Greece in the first centuries of its existence was quite seriously influenced by the art of Egypt. Almost all works of ancient Greek sculpture were half-naked men with their arms down. After some time, Greek sculptures began to experiment a little with clothes, poses, and individuals began to give individual features.

In the classical period, sculpture reached its heights. Masters have learned not only to give the statues natural poses, but even to portray the emotions that a person allegedly experiences. It could be thoughtfulness, detachment, joy or severity, as well as fun.

During this period, it became fashionable to depict mythical heroes and gods, as well as real people who held responsible positions - statesmen, generals, scientists, athletes, or simply rich people who wanted to perpetuate themselves for centuries.

At that time, much attention was paid to the naked body, since the concept of good and evil that existed at that time and in that area interpreted external beauty as a reflection of the spiritual perfection of a person.

The development of sculpture, as a rule, was determined by the needs, as well as the aesthetic demands of the society that existed at that time. It is enough to look at the statues of that time and you can understand how colorful and vibrant art was at that time.

Great sculptor Miron created a statue that had a huge impact on the development of fine arts. This is the famous statue of Discobolus - the discus thrower. The man is captured at the moment when his hand is thrown back a little, there is a heavy disk in it, which he is ready to throw into the distance.

The sculptor was able to capture the athlete at the very climax, which foreshadows the next one, when the projectile is thrown high into the air, and the athlete straightens up. In this sculpture, Myron mastered the movement.

Popular at other times master - Polykleitos, which established the balance of the human figure in a slow step and at rest. The sculptor strives to find the ideal proportions on which the human body can be built when creating a sculpture. In the end, an image was created that became a certain norm and, moreover, an example to follow.

Policlet, in the process of creating his works, mathematically calculated the parameters of all parts of the body, as well as their relationship to each other. Human height was taken as a unit, where the head was one seventh, hands and face - one tenth, and feet - one sixth.

Polikleitos embodied his ideal of an athlete in the statue of a young man with a spear. The image very harmoniously combines ideal physical beauty, as well as spirituality. The sculptor very clearly expressed in this composition the ideal of that era - a healthy, versatile and integral personality.

The twelve meter statue of Athena was created by Phidias. In addition, he created a colossal statue of the god Zeus for the temple, which is located in Olympia.

Impulse and passion, struggle and anxiety, as well as deep events breathe in the art of Master Scopas. The best work of art of this sculptor is the statue of Maenad. At the same time, Praxiteles worked, who in his creations sang the joy of life, as well as the very sensual beauty of the human body.

Lissip created approximately 1,500 bronze statues, among which are simply colossal images of the gods. In addition, there are groups that display all the exploits of Hercules. Together with mythological images, the master's sculptures also depicted the events of that time, which then went down in history.

Architecture and sculpture of ancient Greece

The cities of the ancient world of that time, as a rule, arose in the immediate vicinity of the rock, this also applies to the famous city of Athens. A citadel was erected on the rock, in order to have somewhere to hide when the enemy attacked, the building was also called the acropolis. The rock towered over Athens by about 150 meters and also served as a natural structure for protection. So over time, the upper city began to form, having the appearance of a fortress with a variety of defensive, religious and public buildings.

The Acropolis can rightly be attributed to such places that everyone calls unique and magnificent.

The dimensions are not large, in just a few minutes you can walk the whole city from one end to the other. The walls of the city are steep and very steep. There are four main creations that are located in this beautiful place.

First of all, this is a zigzag road, which leads from the foot of the temple to its only entrance, these are the monumental Propylaea - the second attraction of the city. But before passing through the gate, you can turn to the right, as in this place rises the temple of the goddess of victory Nike, which is colored with columns.

This is a light building, unusually beautiful and airy, which stands out against the blue sky with its whiteness. The goddess at that time was portrayed as a beautiful woman who had large wings, which symbolized the fact that victory as a phenomenon is not constant, it flies from one object to another. But the Athenians portrayed Nike without wings so that she could never leave the city.

Immediately beyond the Propylaea is Athena the Warrior, who greets travelers with her spear, which served as a certain beacon for sailors. On the Acropolis there is also a temple ensemble called Erechtheion, which was conceived as several connected sanctuaries, in turn located at different levels, since the rock is not even.

The northern portico of the temple ensemble leads to the sanctuary of Athens, where a statue of the goddess, made of wood, is kept. The door from this sanctuary led directly into a small courtyard where a sacred tree grew, which appeared after Athena touched the rock with her sword in this very place.

Through the portico, which is located on the east side, one could get into the sanctuary of Poseidon, he also struck the rock with his sword and left three streams. The Acropolis is given as an example, as a combination of sculpture and architecture of that time. But there are also more general characteristics of the art and culture of that time, more on that below.

Features of the architecture of ancient Greece

Ancient Greek architecture was distinguished by the complete correspondence of forms, as well as their constructive basis, which form a single whole. The main structural elements are stone blocks, which served as the basis for the walls. Details such as columns were processed with a variety of profiles, they were supplemented with decorative details and enriched with sculpture.

The ancient Greek masters brought their work to perfection and refinement.. Despite the huge size of the creations, the structures can be called real works of art, and jewelry. This is based on the fact that there was nothing minor when working for the masters.

The architecture of Ancient Greece is closely intertwined in the philosophy of that time, since it was based on certain ideas about the beauty and strength of a person who was in complete unity, as well as in harmonious balance with the natural and social environment. For the reason that in Greece at that time, social life was greatly developed, art, in particular architecture, had precisely this pronounced social character.

Architecture developed in two stylistic streams - Ionic and Doric. The last style is the simplest, characterized by conciseness of forms. Its main distinguishing features are simplicity and style. The Ionic style is much more complex, as it has more details. The most important features include lightness of proportions, relative decorativeness, elegance and differentiation of forms.

This or that style was most clearly expressed in temples. As a rule, they differed among the ancient Egyptian temples in their small size, they were proportionate to a person. All divine services took place strictly outside the walls of the temple, since it was considered exclusively the house of the gods. As a rule, the shape of the temples was rectangular., surrounded by columns and a gable roof along its perimeter. The entrance was usually decorated with a triangular pediment. In the center of the temple hall there was a statue of the deity to whom this or that sanctuary was dedicated. There are three main styles of such structures.

The simplest is distillate, which consists of the sanctuary itself of a rectangular shape. At the same time, the front facade is a loggia with a central opening. On the sides it is fenced with walls called ants, and between them there are two columns. The second style is forgiveness. It is a bit similar to the assembly, but differs in that it has not two columns, but four. And the last style - amphiprostyle, as if a double style, where there are porticos with four columns, which are located on the front and rear facades of the building.

In addition to temples, all ancient Greek masters erected a huge number of other architectural structures that had a public purpose: palestras, stadiums, theaters, and so on. As for the theaters, they were located on the slopes of the mountains. At the same time, special scaffolds intended for spectators were made across the slope. In front of them, below, a stage was erected for the performance of actors.

As a rule, the largest theater was able to accommodate more than 25 thousand people.

As for residential buildings, they had a rectangular courtyard in the center, where the windows and doors of the premises went out. The main floor was intended for meals and feasts, and the upper floor usually belonged to the representatives of the beautiful half of humanity.

In Ancient Greece there was a special period, which was marked by urban development. At this time, numerous shopping centers and buildings for various purposes were being built, and all this was carried out at a very fast pace and on a large scale. Based on this, it became necessary to develop certain technical methods, as well as theoretical foundations in order to quickly produce construction processes.

New developments of that time were combined in special architectural treatises. Their authors worked on the creation of the most rational ways of construction, both in technical and architectural and planning terms. Approximately at the same time, a basic layout of the city was being developed, which was divided by a rectangular grid into identical quarters.

Typically located in the city center public buildings: city council, national assembly, basilicas, schools, gymnasiums and temples. The central city square of that time had the character of a market or agora. The square itself and the streets during the construction process were specially bordered by porticos that created a shadow, and along the contour of the city they were surrounded by walls that performed defensive functions.

General compositions

In general, the compositions of public buildings and structures are quite diverse, not only in appearance, but also in terms of functionality. But there is one general spatial technique that is preferred, for example, the use of the theme of the peristyle courtyard, which in different compositions retains the purpose of the compositional central building.

As a rule, the ancient Greeks used in their buildings and temples, including beam coverings. Usually the distance between the supports was no more than 10 meters. A special rack-and-beam construction system was an order system. It was used not only in the process of designing external porticoes, but also in the internal parts of buildings, in their interiors.

It is worth noting that the harmony and balance of the masses are very beautifully combined in the Acropolis of Athens.

In addition, the interaction between individual structures is thought out. The sequence is taken into account in the perception of buildings outside and inside the complex.

All ancient Greek masters paid close attention to natural conditions, in other words, they tried very deliberately and with the greatest possible artistic result to introduce their buildings into the surrounding interior. Creating a lasting impression of majestic beauty and harmony is facilitated by the active use of sculptures, both inside and outside.

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Ancient Greek sculpture of the Classical period

Speaking about the art of ancient civilizations, first of all, we remember and study the art of Ancient Greece, and in particular its sculpture. Truly in this small beautiful country, this kind of art has risen to such a height that to this day it is considered the standard all over the world. The study of the sculptures of Ancient Greece allows us to better understand the worldview of the Greeks, their philosophy, ideals and aspirations. In sculpture, as nowhere else, the attitude towards man, who in ancient Greece was the measure of all things, is manifested. It is sculpture that gives us the opportunity to judge the religious, philosophical and aesthetic ideas of the ancient Greeks. All this makes it possible to better understand the reasons for such a rise, development and fall of this civilization.

The development of Ancient Greek civilization is divided into several stages - eras. First, briefly, I will talk about the Archaic era, since it preceded the classical era and "set the tone" in sculpture.

The archaic period is the beginning of the formation of ancient Greek sculpture. This era was also divided into early archaic (650 - 580 BC), high (580 - 530 BC), and late (530 - 480 BC). Sculpture - was the embodiment of an ideal person. She extolled his beauty, physical perfection. Early single sculptures are represented by two main types: the image of a naked young man - a kuros and a figure dressed in a long, tight-fitting tunic of a girl - a kora.

The sculpture of this era was very similar to the Egyptian. And this is not surprising: the Greeks, getting acquainted with the Egyptian culture and the cultures of other countries of the Ancient East, borrowed a lot, and in other cases found similarities with them. Certain canons were observed in the sculpture, so they were very geometric and static: a person takes a step forward, his shoulders are straightened, and his arms are lowered along the body, a stupid smile always plays on his lips. In addition, the sculptures were painted: golden hair, blue eyes, pink cheeks.

At the beginning of the classical era, these canons are still in effect, but later the author begins to move away from static, the sculpture acquires a character, and an event, an action often occurs.

Classical sculpture is the second era in the development of ancient Greek culture. It is also divided into stages: early classic or strict style (490 - 450 BC), high (450 - 420 BC), rich style (420 - 390 BC .), late classic (390 - c. 320 BC).

In the era of the early classics, there is a kind of life rethinking. The sculpture takes on a heroic character. Art is freed from those rigid frameworks that fettered it in the archaic era, this is the time of searching for a new, intensive development of various schools and trends, the creation of heterogeneous works. The two types of figures - kuros and kore - are being replaced by a much greater variety of types; sculptures tend to convey the complex movement of the human body.

All this is happening against the backdrop of a war with the Persians, and it was this war that so changed ancient Greek thinking. The cultural centers were shifted and now they are the cities of Athens, the Northern Peloponnese and the Greek West. By that time, Greece had reached the highest point of economic, political and cultural growth. Athens took a leading place in the union of Greek cities. Greek society was democratic, built on the principles of equal activity. All men inhabiting Athens, except for slaves, were equal citizens. And they all enjoyed the right to vote, and could be elected to any public office. The Greeks were in harmony with nature and did not suppress their natural aspirations. Everything that was done by the Greeks was the property of the people. Statues stood in temples and squares, on palestras and on the seashore. They were present on the pediments, in the decorations of temples. As in the archaic era, the sculptures were painted.

Unfortunately, Greek sculpture has come down to us mainly in fragments. Although, according to Plutarch, there were more statues in Athens than living people. Many statues have come down to us in Roman copies. But they are very crude compared to the Greek originals.

One of the most famous sculptors of the early classics is Pythagoras Rhegius. Few of his works have come down to us, and his works are known only from references to ancient authors. Pythagoras became famous for his realistic depiction of human veins, veins and hair. Several Roman copies of his sculptures have been preserved: “The Boy Taking Out a Splinter”, “Hyacinthus”, etc. In addition, he is credited with the famous bronze statue “Charioteer” found in Delphi. Pythagoras Regius created several bronze statues of Olympic and Delphic Games winners. And he owns the statues of Apollo - the Python-killer, the Abduction of Europe, Eteocles, Polyneices and the Wounded Philoctetes.

It is known that Pythagoras Regius was a contemporary and rival of Myron. This is another famous sculptor of that time. And he became famous as the greatest realist and expert in anatomy. But with all this, Miron did not know how to give the faces of his works life and expression. Myron created statues of athletes - winners of competitions, reproduced famous heroes, gods and animals, especially beautifully portrayed difficult poses that looked very realistic.

The best example of such a sculpture of him is the world-famous Discobolus. Ancient writers also mention the famous sculpture of Marsyas with Athena. This famous sculptural group has come down to us in several of its copies. In addition to people, Myron also depicted animals, his image of the “Cow” is especially famous.

Myron mainly worked in bronze, his works have not been preserved and are known from the testimonies of ancient authors and Roman copies. He was also a master of toreutics - he made metal goblets with relief images.

Another famous sculptor of this period is Kalamid. He performed marble, bronze and chryselephantine statues, and depicted mainly gods, female heroic figures and horses. The art of Calamis can be judged by the copy of a later time that has come down to us with the statue of Hermes carrying a ram he executed for Tanagra. The figure of the god himself is executed in the archaic style, with the immobility of the posture and the symmetry of the arrangement of the members characteristic of this style; but the ram carried by Hermes is already distinguished by a certain vitality.

In addition, the monuments of ancient Greek sculpture of the early classics include the pediments and metopes of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia. Another significant work of the early classics is the so-called Throne of Ludovisi. This is a three-sided marble altar depicting the birth of Aphrodite, on the sides of the altar are hetaeras and brides, symbolizing different hypostases of love or images of serving the goddess.

High classics is represented by the names of Phidias and Polykleitos. Its short-term heyday is associated with work on the Athenian Acropolis, that is, with the sculptural decoration of the Parthenon. The pinnacle of ancient Greek sculpture was, apparently, the statues of Athena Parthenos and Zeus Olympus by Phidias.

Phidias is one of the best representatives of the classical style, and it is enough to say about his significance that he is considered the founder of European art. The Attic school of sculpture headed by him occupied a leading place in the art of high classics.

Phidias possessed knowledge of the achievements of optics. A story has been preserved about his rivalry with Alkamen: both were ordered statues of Athena, which were supposed to be erected on high columns. Phidias made his statue in accordance with the height of the column - on the ground it seemed ugly and disproportionate. The neck of the goddess was very long. When both statues were erected on high pedestals, the correctness of Phidias became obvious. They note the great skill of Phidias in the interpretation of clothes, in which he surpasses both Myron and Polikleitos.

Most of his works have not survived; we can judge them only from the descriptions of ancient authors and copies. However, his fame was colossal. And there were so many of them that what is left is already a lot. The most famous works of Phidias - Zeus and Athena Parthenos were made in chrysoelephantine technique - gold and ivory.

The statue of Zeus in height, together with the pedestal, according to various sources, was from 12 to 17 meters. Zeus's eyes were the size of a grown man's fist. The cape that covered part of the body of Zeus, the scepter with an eagle in the left hand, the statue of the goddess Nike in the right and the wreath on the head are made of gold. Zeus sits on a throne, four dancing Nikes are depicted on the legs of the throne. Also depicted were: centaurs, lapiths, the exploits of Theseus and Hercules, frescoes depicting the battle of the Greeks with the Amazons.

Athena Parthenon was, like the statue of Zeus, huge and made in chrysoelephantine technique. Only the goddess, unlike her father, did not sit on the throne, but stood to her full height. “Athena herself is made of ivory and gold ... The statue depicts her in full growth in a chiton to the very feet, she has the head of Medusa made of ivory on her chest, in her hand she holds the image of Nike, approximately four cubits, and in her other hand - - a spear. At her feet lies a shield, and near the spear is a snake; this snake is probably Erichthonius. (Description of Hellas, XXIV, 7).

The helmet of the goddess had three crests: the middle one with a sphinx, the side ones with griffins. According to Pliny the Elder, the battle with the Amazons was minted on the outside of the shield, the struggle of the gods with the giants on the inside, and on the sandals of Athena there was an image of a centauromachy. The base was decorated with a Pandora story. The goddess's chiton, her shield, sandals, helmet and jewelry are all made of gold.

On marble copies, the hand of the goddess with Nika is supported by a pillar, whether it existed in the original is the subject of numerous disputes. Nika seems tiny, in reality her height was 2 meters.

Athena Promachos - a colossal image of the goddess Athena, brandishing a spear, on the Athenian Acropolis. Erected in memory of the victories over the Persians. Its height reached 18.5 meters and towered over all the surrounding buildings, shining over the city from afar. Unfortunately, this bronze goddess did not survive to this day. And we know about it only from chronicle sources.

Athena Lemnia - a bronze statue of the goddess Athena, created by Phidias, is also known to us from copies. This is a bronze statue depicting a goddess leaning on a spear. Named - from the island of Lemnos, for the inhabitants of which it was made.

Wounded Amazon, the runner-up statue in the famous sculpting competition for the Temple of Artemis of Ephesus. In addition to the above sculptures, Phidias is also credited with others, according to style similarities: a statue of Demeter, a statue of Kore, a relief from Eleusis, Anadumen (a young man tying a bandage around his head), Hermes Ludovisi, Tiber Apollo, Kassel Apollo.

Despite the talent, or rather the divine gift, Phidias, his relationship with the inhabitants of Athens was not at all warm. As Plutarch writes, in his Life of Pericles, Phidias was the main adviser and assistant to Pericles (Athenian politician, famous orator and commander).

“Since he was a friend of Pericles and enjoyed great authority with him, he had many personal enemies and envious people. They persuaded one of Phidias' assistants, Menon, to denounce Phidias and accuse him of theft. Envy for the glory of his works gravitated over Phidias ... When analyzing his case in the National Assembly, there was no evidence of theft. But Phidias was sent to prison and there he died of an illness.

Polikleitos the Elder - an ancient Greek sculptor and art theorist, a contemporary of Phidias. Unlike Phidias, he was not so large-scale. However, his sculpture has a certain character: Policlet liked to depict athletes at rest, he specialized in depicting athletes, Olympic winners. He was the first to think of giving the figures such a statement that they rested on the lower part of only one leg. Polikleitos knew how to show the human body in a state of balance - his human figure at rest or slow pace seems to be moving and animated. An example of this is the famous statue of Polikleitos "Dorifor" (spear-bearer). It is in this work that Poliklet's ideas about the ideal proportions of the human body, which are in numerical ratio with each other, are embodied. It was believed that the figure was created on the basis of the provisions of Pythagoreanism, therefore, in ancient times, the statue of Doryphoros was often called the "canon of Poliklet." The forms of this statue are repeated in most of the works of the sculptor and his school. The distance from the chin to the crown in the statues of Polykleitos is one seventh, while the distance from the eyes to the chin is one sixteenth, and the height of the face is one tenth of the whole figure. Polykleitos is strongly associated with the Pythagorean tradition. "Canon of Polykleitos" - a theoretical treatise of the sculptor, created by Polykleitos for other artists to use it. Indeed, the Canon of Polykleitos had a great influence on European culture, despite the fact that only two fragments of the theoretical work have survived, information about it is fragmentary, and the mathematical basis has not yet been finally deduced.

In addition to the spearman, other works of the sculptor are also known: “Diadumen” (“Young man tying a bandage”), “Wounded Amazon”, a colossal statue of Hera in Argos. It was made in the chrysoelephantine technique and was perceived as a pandan to Olympian Zeus Phidias, "Discophorus" ("Young Man Holding a Disc"). Unfortunately, these sculptures have survived only in ancient Roman copies.

At the “Rich Style” stage, we know the names of such sculptors as Alkamen, Agoracritus, Callimachus, etc.

Alkamen, Greek sculptor, pupil, rival and successor of Phidias. It was believed that Alkamen was not inferior to Phidias, and after the death of the latter, he became the leading sculptor in Athens. His Hermes in the form of a herm (pillar crowned with the head of Hermes) is known in many copies. Nearby, near the temple of Athena Nike, there was a statue of Hecate, which consisted of three figures connected with their backs. On the acropolis of Athens, a group belonging to Alkamen was also found - Prokna, who raised a knife over her son Itis, who seeks salvation in the folds of her clothes. In the sanctuary on the slope of the Acropolis there was a statue of a seated Dionysus belonging to Alkamen. Alkamenes also created a statue of Ares for the temple in the agora and a statue of Hephaestus for the temple of Hephaestus and Athena.

Alkamen defeated Agoracritus in a competition to create a statue of Aphrodite. Even more famous, however, is the seated Aphrodite in the Gardens, at the northern foot of the Acropolis. She is depicted on many red-figure Attic vases surrounded by Eros, Peito and other embodiments of the happiness that love brings. Often repeated by ancient copyists, the head, called "Sappho", was probably copied from this statue. The last work of Alkamen is a colossal relief with Hercules and Athena. It is probable that Alkamen died shortly thereafter.

Agorakrit was also a student of Phidias, and, as they say, a favorite. He, like Alkamen, participated in the creation of the frieze of the Parthenon. The two most famous works of Agoracritus are the cult statue of the goddess Nemesis (remade after the duel with Alkamen Athena), donated to the Ramnos temple and the statue of the Mother of the Gods in Athens (sometimes attributed to Phidias). Of the works mentioned by ancient authors, only the statues of Zeus-Hades and Athena in Coronea undoubtedly belonged to Agoracritus. Of his works, only part of the head of the colossal statue of Nemesis and fragments of the reliefs that adorned the base of this statue have survived. According to Pausanias, young Helen (daughter of Nemesis) was depicted on the base, with Leda who nursed her, her husband Menelaus and other relatives of Helen and Menelaus.

The general character of late classical sculpture was determined by the development of realistic tendencies.

Scopas is one of the major sculptors of this period. Skopas, preserving the traditions of the monumental art of high classics, saturates his works with drama, he reveals the complex feelings and experiences of a person. The heroes of Scopas continue to embody the perfect qualities of strong and valiant people. However, Scopas introduces into the art of sculpture the themes of suffering, internal breakdown. These are the images of wounded soldiers from the pediments of the temple of Athena Aley in Tegea. Plasticity, a sharp restless play of chiaroscuro emphasizes the drama of what is happening.

Scopas preferred to work in marble, almost abandoning the favorite material of the high classics - bronze. Marble made it possible to convey a subtle play of light and shadow, various textural contrasts. His Maenad (Bacchante), which has survived in a small damaged antique copy, embodies the image of a man possessed by a stormy outburst of passion. The dance of Maenad is swift, her head thrown back, her hair falling in a heavy wave over her shoulders. The movement of the curved folds of her tunic emphasizes the impetuous impulse of the body.

The images of Scopas are either deeply thoughtful, like a young man from the gravestone of the Ilissus River, or lively and passionate.

The frieze of the Halicarnassus mausoleum depicting the battle of the Greeks with the Amazons has been preserved in the original.

The impact of the art of Scopas on the further development of Greek plastic art was enormous, and it can only be compared with the impact of the art of his contemporary Praxiteles.

In his work, Praxiteles refers to images imbued with the spirit of clear and pure harmony, calm thoughtfulness, serene contemplation. Praxiteles and Scopas complement each other, revealing the various states and feelings of a person, his inner world.

Depicting harmoniously developed, beautiful heroes, Praxiteles also reveals connections with the art of high classics, but his images lose that heroism and monumental grandeur of the works of the heyday, but acquire a more lyrically refined and contemplative character.

The mastery of Praxiteles is most fully revealed in the marble group “Hermes with Dionysus”. The graceful curve of the figure, the relaxed posture of rest of the young slender body, the beautiful, spiritual face of Hermes are conveyed with great skill.

Praxitel created a new ideal of female beauty, embodying it in the image of Aphrodite, who is depicted at the moment when, having taken off her clothes, she is about to enter the water. Although the sculpture was intended for cult purposes, the image of the beautiful naked goddess was freed from solemn majesty. "Aphrodite of Cnidus" caused many repetitions in subsequent times, but none of them could compare with the original.

The sculpture "Apollo Saurocton" is an image of a graceful teenage boy who aims at a lizard running along a tree trunk. Praxiteles rethinks mythological images, features of everyday life, elements of the genre appear in them.

If in the art of Skopas and Praxiteles there are still tangible connections with the principles of high classic art, then in the artistic culture of the last third of the 4th century. BC e., these ties are weakening more and more.

Macedonia acquires great importance in the socio-political life of the ancient world. Just like the war with the Persians, it changed and rethought the culture of Greece at the beginning of the 5th century. BC e. After the victorious campaigns of Alexander the Great and his conquest of the Greek policies, and then the vast territories of Asia, which became part of the Macedonian state, a new stage in the development of ancient society begins - the period of Hellenism. The transitional period from the late classics to the Hellenistic period itself is distinguished by peculiar features.

Lysippus is the last great master of the late classics. His work unfolds in the 40-30s. 5th century BC e., during the reign of Alexander the Great. In the art of Lysippus, as well as in the work of his great predecessors, the task of revealing the experiences of a person was solved. He began to introduce more clearly expressed features of age, occupation. New in the work of Lysippus is his interest in the characteristically expressive in man, as well as the expansion of the pictorial possibilities of sculpture.

Lysippus embodied his understanding of the image of a man in the sculpture of a young man who scrapes sand off himself after competitions - “Apoxiomen”, whom he depicts not at a moment of exertion, but in a state of fatigue. The slender figure of an athlete is shown in a complex turn, which forces the viewer to go around the sculpture. The movement is freely deployed in space. The face expresses weariness, deep-set shadowy eyes look into the distance.

Lysippus skillfully conveys the transition from a state of rest to action and vice versa. This is the image of the resting Hermes.

Of great importance was the work of Lysippus for the development of the portrait. In the portraits of Alexander the Great created by him, a deep interest in revealing the spiritual world of the hero is revealed. The most remarkable is the marble head of Alexander, which conveys his complex, contradictory nature.

The art of Lysippus occupies the border zone at the turn of the classical and Hellenistic eras. It is still true to classical concepts, but already undermines them from within, creating the ground for a transition to something else, more relaxed and more prosaic. In this sense, the head of a fist fighter is indicative, belonging not to Lysippus, but, possibly, to his brother Lysistratus, who was also a sculptor and was said to be the first to use masks removed from the model’s face for portraits (which was widespread in ancient Egypt, but completely alien to Greek art). It is possible that the head of the fist fighter was also made with the help of a mask; it is far from the canon, and far from the ideal ideas of physical perfection, which the Hellenes embodied in the image of an athlete. This fist fight winner is nothing like a demigod, just an entertainer for an idle crowd. His face is rough, his nose is flattened, his ears are swollen. This type of "naturalistic" images later became widespread in Hellenism; An even more unsightly fist fighter was sculpted by the Attic sculptor Apollonius already in the 1st century BC. e.

That which had previously cast shadows on the bright structure of the Hellenic world outlook came at the end of the 4th century BC. e .: the decomposition and death of the democratic policy. The beginning of this was laid by the rise of Macedonia, the northern region of Greece, and the actual capture of all Greek states by the Macedonian king Philip II.

Alexander the Great in his youth tasted the fruits of the highest Greek culture. His tutor was the great philosopher Aristotle, court painters - Lysippus and Apelles. This did not prevent him, having captured the Persian state and taking the throne of the Egyptian pharaohs, to declare himself a god and demand that he and in Greece be given divine honors. Unaccustomed to Eastern customs, the Greeks, chuckling, said: "Well, if Alexander wants to be a god, let him be" - and officially recognized him as the son of Zeus. However, Greek democracy, on which its culture grew, died under Alexander and was not revived after his death. The newly emerged state was no longer Greek, but Greco-Eastern. The era of Hellenism has come - the unification under the auspices of the monarchy of Hellenic and Eastern cultures.

antique sculpture

HERMITAGE

Aphrodite

Aphrodite

Aphrodite (Venus Taurida)
Description:
According to Hesiod's Theogony, Aphrodite was born near the island of Cythera from the seed and blood of Uranus castrated by Kronos, which fell into the sea and formed snow-white foam (hence the nickname "foam-born"). The breeze brought her to the island of Cyprus (or she herself sailed there, because she did not like Kiefera), where she, who emerged from the waves of the sea, was met by Ores.

The statue of Aphrodite (Venus Tauride) dates back to the 3rd century BC. e., now it is in the Hermitage and is considered its most famous statue. The sculpture became the first antique statue of a naked woman in Russia. Life-size marble statue of Venus bathing (height 167 cm), modeled after Aphrodite of Cnidus or Venus Capitoline. The arms of the statue and a fragment of the nose are missing. Before entering the State Hermitage, she decorated the garden of the Tauride Palace, hence the name. In the past, "Venus Tauride" was intended to decorate the park. However, the statue was delivered to Russia much earlier, even under Peter I and thanks to his efforts. The inscription on the bronze ring of the pedestal recalls that Venus was presented by Clement XI to Peter I (as a result of an exchange for the relics of St. Brigid, sent to Pope Peter I). The statue was discovered in 1718 during excavations in Rome. Unknown sculptor of the 3rd century. BC. portrayed the naked goddess of love and beauty Venus. A slender figure, rounded, smooth silhouette lines, softly modeled body shapes - everything speaks of a healthy and chaste perception of female beauty. Along with a calm restraint (posture, facial expression), a generalized manner, alien to fragmentation and fine detail, as well as a number of other features characteristic of the art of the classics (5th - 4th centuries BC), the creator of Venus embodied in her his idea of beauty, associated with the ideals of the III century BC. e. (graceful proportions - high waist, somewhat elongated legs, thin neck, small head, tilt of the figure, rotation of the body and head).

Italy. Antique sculpture in the Vatican Museum.

Joseph Brodsky

Torso

If you suddenly wander into the stone grass,
looking better in marble than in reality,
Or do you notice a faun who indulges in a feast
with a nymph, and both in bronze are happier than in a dream,
you can release the staff from your weary hands:
you're in the Empire, friend.

Air, fire, water, fauns, naiads, lions,
taken from nature or from the head, -
everything that God came up with and keep tired
brain, turned into stone or metal.
This is the end of things, this is the end of the road
mirror to enter.

Stand in a free niche and, rolling your eyes,
watch the centuries pass, disappearing behind
corner, and how moss grows in the groin
and dust falls on the shoulders - this tan of epochs.
Someone will cut off the hand, and the head from the shoulder
rolls down, knocking.

And there will be a torso, an unnamed sum of muscles.
A thousand years later, a mouse living in a niche with
with a broken claw, not having overcome granite,
going out one evening, squeaking, mince
across the road so as not to come into the hole
at midnight. Not in the morning.

10 secrets of famous sculptures

The silence of the great statues holds many secrets. When Auguste Rodin was asked how he creates his statues, the sculptor repeated the words of the great Michelangelo: "I take a block of marble and cut off everything superfluous from it." This is probably why the sculpture of a real master always creates a feeling of a miracle: it seems that only a genius is able to see the beauty that is hidden in a piece of stone.

We are sure that in almost every significant work of art there is a mystery, a “double bottom” or a secret story that you want to uncover. Today we will share a few of them.

1. Horned Moses

Michelangelo Buanarotti, Moses, 1513-1515

Michelangelo depicted Moses with horns on his sculpture. Many art historians attribute this to a misinterpretation of the Bible. The Book of Exodus says that when Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the tablets, it was difficult for the Jews to look into his face. At this point in the Bible, a word is used that can be translated from Hebrew as both “rays” and “horns”. However, from the context, we can definitely say that we are talking about rays of light - that Moses' face was shining, and not horned.

2. Color Antiquity

"August from Prima Port", antique statue.

For a long time it was believed that ancient Greek and Roman sculptures made of white marble were originally colorless. However, recent studies by scientists have confirmed the hypothesis that the statues were painted in a wide range of colors, which eventually disappeared under prolonged exposure to light and air.

3. The suffering of the Little Mermaid

Edvard Eriksen, The Little Mermaid, 1913

The Little Mermaid statue in Copenhagen is one of the most long-suffering in the world: it is she who is most loved by vandals. Its history has been very turbulent. It was broken and sawn into pieces many times. And now you can still find barely noticeable "scars" on the neck, which appeared from the need to replace the head of the sculpture. The Little Mermaid was beheaded twice: in 1964 and 1998. In 1984, her right hand was sawn off. On March 8, 2006, a dildo was placed on the mermaid's hand, and the unfortunate woman herself was splashed with green paint. In addition, there was a scrawled inscription “Since March 8!” on the back. In 2007, the authorities in Copenhagen announced that the statue could be moved further into the harbor to avoid further vandalism and to prevent tourists from constantly trying to climb it.

4. "Kiss" without a kiss

Auguste Rodin, The Kiss, 1882

The famous sculpture of Auguste Rodin "The Kiss" was originally called "Francesca da Rimini", in honor of the noble Italian lady of the XIII century depicted on it, whose name was immortalized by Dante's Divine Comedy (Second Circle, Fifth Canto). The lady fell in love with her husband's younger brother Giovanni Malatesta, Paolo. As they read the story of Lancelot and Guinevere, they were discovered and then killed by her husband. On the sculpture, Paolo can be seen holding a book in his hand. But in fact, the lovers do not touch each other with their lips, as if hinting that they were killed without committing a sin.
The renaming of the sculpture into a more abstract one - Kiss (Le Baiser) - was done by critics who first saw it in 1887.

5. The secret of the marble veil

Raphael Monti, "Marble Veil", mid-19th century

When you look at the statues covered with a translucent marble veil, you involuntarily think about how it is even possible to make this out of stone. It's all about the special structure of the marble used for these sculptures. The block, which was to become a statue, had to have two layers - one more transparent, the other more dense. Such natural stones are hard to find, but they exist. The master had a plot in his head, he knew what kind of block he was looking for. He worked with it, observing the texture of a normal surface, and walked along the border separating the denser and more transparent part of the stone. As a result, the remains of this transparent part "shone through", which gave the effect of a veil.

6The Perfect David Made Of Damaged Marble

Michelangelo Buanarotti, "David", 1501-1504

The famous statue of David was made by Michelangelo from a piece of white marble left over from another sculptor, Agostino di Duccio, who unsuccessfully tried to work with this piece and then abandoned it.

By the way, David, who for centuries was considered a model of male beauty, is not so perfect. The thing is, he's a jerk. This conclusion was reached by American scientist Mark Levoy from Stanford University, who examined the statue using laser-computer technology. The “vision defect” of the more than five-meter sculpture is imperceptible, since it is set on a high pedestal. According to experts, Michelangelo deliberately endowed his offspring with this flaw, because he wanted David's profile to look perfect from any angle.
Death inspired creativity

7. Kiss of Death, 1930

The most mysterious statue in the Catalan cemetery of Poblenou is called "The Kiss of Death". The sculptor who created it is still unknown. Usually the authorship of The Kiss is attributed to Jaume Barba, but there are those who are sure that the monument was sculpted by Joan Fonbernat. The sculpture is located in one of the far corners of the Poblenou cemetery. It was she who inspired the film director Bergman to create the film "The Seventh Seal" - about the communication between the Knight and Death.

8. Hands of Venus de Milo

Agesander (?), Venus de Milo, c. 130-100 BC
The figure of Venus takes pride of place in the Louvre in Paris. A certain Greek peasant found her in 1820 on the island of Milos. At the time of discovery, the figure was broken into two large fragments. In her left hand, the goddess held an apple, and with her right hand she held a falling robe. Realizing the historical significance of this ancient sculpture, the officers of the French navy ordered the marble statue to be taken away from the island. As Venus was being dragged over the rocks to the waiting ship, a fight broke out between the bearers and both arms broke off. Tired sailors flatly refused to return and look for the remaining parts.

9. Beautiful imperfection of Nike of Samothrace

Nika of Samothrace, 2nd cent. BC.
The statue of Nike was found on the island of Samothrace in 1863 by Charles Champoiseau, a French consul and archaeologist. Carved from golden Parian marble, a statue on the island crowned the altar of sea deities. Researchers believe that an unknown sculptor created Nike in the 2nd century BC as a sign of Greek naval victories. The hands and head of the goddess are irretrievably lost. Repeatedly made and attempts to restore the original position of the hands of the goddess. It is assumed that the right hand, raised up, held a goblet, wreath or bugle. Interestingly, repeated attempts to restore the hands of the statue were unsuccessful - they all spoiled the masterpiece. These failures force us to admit: Nika is beautiful just like that, perfect in her imperfection.

10. Mystical Bronze Horseman

Etienne Falcone, Monument to Peter I, 1768-1770
The Bronze Horseman is a monument surrounded by mystical and otherworldly stories. One of the legends associated with him says that during the Patriotic War of 1812, Alexander I ordered especially valuable works of art to be taken out of the city, including a monument to Peter I. At this time, a certain major Baturin achieved a meeting with the personal friend of the tsar, Prince Golitsyn and told him that he, Baturin, was haunted by the same dream. He sees himself on Senate Square. Peter's face turns. The rider leaves his rock and heads along the streets of St. Petersburg to Kamenny Ostrov, where Alexander I then lived. The rider enters the courtyard of the Kamenoostrovsky Palace, from which the sovereign comes out to meet him. “Young man, what have you brought my Russia to,” Peter the Great tells him, “but as long as I am in place, my city has nothing to fear!” Then the rider turns back, and the “heavy-voiced gallop” is heard again. Struck by Baturin's story, Prince Golitsyn conveyed the dream to the sovereign. As a result, Alexander I canceled his decision to evacuate the monument. The monument remained in place.

*****

Greece and art are inseparable concepts. In numerous archaeological museums you can see ancient sculptures and bronze statues, many of which were raised from the bottom of the Aegean Sea. Local history museums display handicrafts and textiles, and the best Athens museums are on par with art galleries elsewhere in Europe.

Athens, Archaeological Museum of Piraeus.
Origin: The statue was discovered among others in 1959 in Piraeus, at the intersection of Georgiou and Filona streets in a storage room near the ancient harbor. The sculpture was hidden in this room from the troops of Sulla in 86 BC. e.
Description: Bronze statue of Artemis
This type of powerful female figure was originally identified as a poetess or muse from the sculptural compositions of Silanion. This statue is identified as an image of Artemis by the presence of a sling for a quiver on the back, as well as by the location of the fingers of the hand in which the bow was located. This cleissicizing work is attributed to Euphranor on the basis of its resemblance to Apollo Patros on the Agora.

Ancient Greek sculpture occupies a special place among the variety of masterpieces of cultural heritage belonging to this country. It glorifies and embodies with the help of visual means the beauty of the human body, its ideal. However, not only the smoothness of lines and grace are the characteristic features that mark ancient Greek sculpture. The skill of its creators was so great that they managed to convey a range of emotions even in a cold stone, to give a deep, special meaning to the figures, as if breathing life into them. Each ancient Greek sculpture is endowed with a mystery that still attracts. The creations of the great masters do not leave anyone indifferent.

Like other cultures, it went through different periods in its development. Each of them was marked by changes in all types of fine arts, including sculpture. Therefore, it is possible to trace the main stages in the formation of this type of art by briefly characterizing the features of ancient Greek sculpture in various periods of the historical development of this country.

archaic period

Time from 8th to 6th century BC. Ancient Greek sculpture at this time had a certain primitiveness as a characteristic feature. It was observed because the images embodied in the works did not differ in variety, they were too generalized and were called kors, young men - kuros).

Apollo of Tenea

The statue of Apollo of Tenea is the most famous of all the figures of this era that have come down to our time. In total, several dozen of them are now known. It is made of marble. Apollo is depicted as a young man with his hands down, his fingers clenched into fists. His eyes are wide open, and his face reflects an archaic smile, typical of sculptures belonging to this period.

female figures

The images of women and girls were distinguished by wavy hair, long clothes, but they were most attracted by the elegance and smoothness of lines, the embodiment of grace, femininity.

Archaic ancient Greek sculptures had some disproportion, schematic. Each work, on the other hand, is attractive with restrained emotionality and simplicity. For this era, in the depiction of human figures, as we have already noted, a half-smile is characteristic, which gives them depth and mystery.

Located today in the Berlin State Museum, the "Goddess with a Pomegranate" is one of the best preserved figures among other archaic sculptures. With "wrong" proportions and external roughness of the image, the hands, brilliantly executed by the author, attract the attention of the audience. The expressive gesture makes the sculpture especially expressive and dynamic.

"Kouros of Piraeus"

Located in the Athens Museum, "Kouros from Piraeus" is a later, therefore, a more perfect creation, made by an ancient sculptor. Before us appears a young powerful warrior. and a slight tilt of the head indicate the conversation he is having. The broken proportions are no longer so striking. Archaic ancient Greek sculptures, as we have already mentioned, have generalized facial features. However, this figure is not as noticeable as in creations belonging to the early archaic period.

classical period

The classical period is the time from the 5th to the 4th century BC. The works of ancient Greek sculpture at this time underwent some changes, which we will now tell you about. Among the sculptors of this period, one of the most famous figures is Pythagoras Rhegius.

Features of the sculptures of Pythagoras

His creations are characterized by realism and liveliness, which were innovative at that time. Some works of this author are considered even too bold for this era (for example, a statue of a boy taking out a splinter). The quickness of mind and extraordinary talent allowed this sculptor to study the meaning of harmony using mathematical methods of calculation. He conducted them on the basis of the philosophical and mathematical school, which he founded. Pythagoras, using these methods, explored harmony of various nature: musical, architectural structures, the human body. There was a Pythagorean school based on the principle of number. That it was considered the basis of the world.

Other sculptors of the classical period

The classical period, in addition to the name of Pythagoras, gave world culture such famous masters as Phidias, Poliklet and Miron. The works of ancient Greek sculpture by these authors are united by the following general principle - the reflection of the harmony of the ideal body and the beautiful soul contained in it. It is this principle that is the main one that guided various masters of that time when creating their creations. Ancient Greek sculpture is the ideal of harmony and beauty.

Myron

Great influence on the art of Athens in the 5th century BC. e. rendered the work of Myron (suffice it to recall the famous Discobolus, made of bronze). This master, unlike Polykleitos, whom we will talk about later, liked to depict figures in motion. For example, in the above statue of the Discobolus, dating back to the 5th century BC. e., he portrayed a handsome young man at the moment when he swung in order to throw a disc. His body is tense and curved, caught in motion, like a spring ready to unfold. Trained muscles bulged under the supple skin of his back arm. Forming a reliable support, they went deep into the sand. Such is the ancient Greek sculpture (Discobolus). The statue was cast in bronze. However, only a marble copy made by the Romans from the original has come down to us. The image below shows the statue of the Minotaur by this sculptor.

Polykleitos

The ancient Greek sculpture of Polikleitos has the following characteristic feature - the figure of a man standing with his arm raised up on one leg, balance is inherent. An example of its masterful embodiment is the statue of Doryphoros the Spearman. Polikleitos in his works sought to combine ideal physical data with spirituality and beauty. This desire inspired him to publish his treatise called "Canon", which, unfortunately, has not survived to our time.

The statues of Polykleitos are full of intense life. He liked to portray athletes at rest. For example, "Spearman" is a powerful man who is full of self-esteem. He stands motionless in front of the viewer. However, this peace is not static, characteristic of ancient Egyptian statues. Like a man who easily and skillfully controls his own body, the spearman slightly bent his leg, moving it to another weight of the hull. It seems that a little time will pass, and he will turn his head and step forward. Before us appears a beautiful, strong man, free from fear, restrained, proud - the embodiment of the ideals of the Greeks.

Phidias

Phidias can rightfully be considered a great creator, the creator of sculpture, dating back to the 5th century BC. e. It was he who was able to master the skill of bronze casting to perfection. Phidias cast 13 sculptural figures, which became worthy decorations of the Delphic Temple of Apollo. Among the works of this master is also the statue of Athena the Virgin in the Parthenon, whose height is 12 meters. It is made of ivory and pure gold. This technique of making statues was called chryso-elephantine.

The sculptures of this master especially reflect the fact that in Greece the gods are images of an ideal person. Of the works of Phidias, the best preserved is the 160-meter marble ribbon of the frieze relief, which depicts the procession of the goddess Athena, heading to the Parthenon temple.

Statue of Athena

The sculpture of this temple was badly damaged. Even in ancient times died This figure stood inside the temple. Created by Phidias. The ancient Greek sculpture of Athena had the following features: her head with a rounded chin and a smooth, low forehead, as well as her arms and neck were made of ivory, and her helmet, shield, clothes and hair were made of sheets of gold.

There are many stories associated with this figure. This masterpiece was so famous and great that Phidias immediately had a lot of envious people who tried in every possible way to annoy the sculptor, for which they were looking for reasons to accuse him of something. This master, for example, was accused of allegedly concealing part of the gold intended for the sculpture of Athena. Phidias, as proof of his innocence, removed all the golden objects from the statue and weighed them. This weight coincided exactly with the amount of gold provided to him. Then the sculptor was accused of godlessness. Athena's shield was the reason for this. It depicted a battle scene with the Amazons of the Greeks. Phidias among the Greeks portrayed himself, as well as Pericles. The Greek public, despite all the merits of this master, nevertheless opposed him. The life of this sculptor ended with a cruel execution.

The achievements of Phidias were not exhausted by the sculptures made in the Parthenon. So, he created the figure of Athena Promachos from bronze, which was erected around 460 BC. e. in the Acropolis.

Statue of Zeus

True fame came to Phidias after the creation by this master of the statue of Zeus for the temple located in Olympia. The height of the figure was 13 meters. Many originals, unfortunately, have not been preserved, only their descriptions and copies have survived to this day. In many ways, this was facilitated by the fanatical destruction by Christians. The statue of Zeus did not survive either. It can be described as follows: a 13-meter figure sat on a golden throne. The head of the god was decorated with a wreath of olive branches, which was a symbol of his peacefulness. Chest, arms, shoulders, face were made of ivory. Zeus' cloak is thrown over his left shoulder. The beard and crown are of sparkling gold. Such is this ancient Greek sculpture, briefly described. It seems that God, if he stands up and straightens his shoulders, will not fit in this vast hall - the ceiling will be low for him.

Hellenistic period

The stages of development of ancient Greek sculpture are completed by the Hellenistic one. This period is the time in the history of ancient Greece from the 4th to the 1st century BC. Sculpture at that time was still the main purpose of decorating various architectural structures. But it also reflected the changes that had taken place in the administration of the state.

In sculpture, which at that time was one of the main types of art, in addition, many trends and schools arose. They existed on Rhodes, in Pergamon, Alexandria. The best works presented by these schools reflect the problems that worried the minds of the people of this era at that time. These images, in contrast to classical calm purposefulness, carry passionate pathos, emotional tension, and dynamics.

The strong influence of the East on all art as a whole is characterized by late Greek antiquity. New features of ancient Greek sculpture appear: numerous details, exquisite draperies, complex angles. The temperament and emotionality of the East penetrate the grandeur and tranquility of the classics.

Located in the Roman Museum, the Baths "Aphrodite of Cyrene" is full of sensuality, some coquetry.

"Laocoon and his sons"

The most famous sculptural composition belonging to this era is Laocoön and his sons, made by Agesander of Rhodes. This masterpiece is now kept in the Vatican Museum. The composition is full of drama, and the plot suggests emotionality. The hero and his sons, desperately resisting the snakes sent by Athena, seem to understand their terrible fate. This sculpture is made with extraordinary precision. Realistic and plastic figures. The faces of the characters make a strong impression.

Three great sculptors

In the works of sculptors dating back to the 4th century BC. e., the humanistic ideal is preserved, but the unity of the civil collective disappears. Ancient Greek sculptures and their authors are losing a sense of the fullness of life and the integrity of the worldview. Great masters who lived in the 4th century BC. e., create art that reveals new facets of the spiritual world. These searches were most clearly expressed by three authors - Lysippus, Praxiteles and Skopas.

Scopas

Skopas became the most prominent figure among the rest of the sculptors who worked at that time. Deep doubts, struggle, anxiety, impulse and passion breathe in his art. This native of the island of Paros worked in many cities in Hellas. The skill of this author was embodied in a statue called "Nike of Samothrace". This name was received in memory of the victory in 306 BC. e. Rhodes fleet. This figure is mounted on a pedestal, reminiscent of the design of a ship's prow.

Scopas' "Dancing Maenad" is presented in a dynamic, complex perspective.

Praxiteles

This author had a different creative beginning. This author sang the sensual beauty of the body and the joy of life. Praxiteles enjoyed great fame, was rich. This sculptor is best known for the statue of Aphrodite he made for the island of Cnidus. She was the first depiction of a naked goddess in Greek art. The beautiful Phryne, the famous hetaera, beloved of Praxiteles, served as a model for the statue of Aphrodite. This girl was accused of blasphemy, and then acquitted by judges admiring her beauty. Praxiteles is the singer of female beauty, which was honored by the Greeks. Unfortunately, Aphrodite of Cnidus is known to us only from copies.

Leohar

Leohar - Athenian master, the largest of Praxiteles' contemporaries. This sculptor, working in various Hellenic policies, created mythological scenes and images of the gods. He made several portrait statues in chryso-elephantine technique depicting members of the king's family. After that, he became the court master of Alexander the Great, his son. At this time, Leochar created a statue of Apollo, very popular in antiquity. It was preserved in a marble copy made by the Romans, and under the name of Apollo Belvedere, it gained world fame. Leohar demonstrates virtuoso technique in all his creations.

After the reign of Alexander the Great, the Hellenistic era became a period of rapid flowering of portrait art. Statues of various orators, poets, philosophers, generals, statesmen were erected on the squares of cities. The masters wanted to achieve an external similarity and at the same time emphasize the features in the appearance that turn the portrait into a typical image.

Other sculptors and their creations

Classical sculptures became examples of various creations of masters who worked in the Hellenistic era. Gigantomania is clearly visible in the works of that time, that is, the desire to embody the desired image in a huge statue. Especially often it manifests itself when the ancient Greek sculptures of the gods are created. The statue of the god Helios is a prime example of this. It is made of gilded bronze, towered at the entrance of the Rhodes harbor. The height of the sculpture is 32 meters. Chares, a student of Lysippus, worked on it for 12 years, tirelessly. This work of art has taken its rightful place in the list of wonders of the world.

Many statues, after the capture of ancient Greece by the Roman conquerors, were taken out of this country. Not only sculptures, but also masterpieces of painting, collections of imperial libraries and other cultural objects suffered this fate. Many people who worked in the field of education and science were captured. In the culture of ancient Rome, thus, were woven, having a significant impact on its development, various elements of the Greek.

Conclusion

Of course, different periods of development that Ancient Greece experienced made their own adjustments to the process of sculpture formation, but one thing united the masters belonging to different eras - the desire to comprehend spatiality in the art, love for expression using various methods of plasticity of the human body. The ancient Greek sculpture, the photo of which is presented above, unfortunately, has only partially survived to this day. Often marble served as a material for figures, despite its fragility. Only in this way could the beauty and elegance of the human body be conveyed. Bronze, although it was a more reliable and noble material, was used much less frequently.

Ancient Greek sculpture and painting are original and interesting. Various examples of art give an idea of ​​the spiritual life of this country.

1.1 Sculpture in Ancient Greece. Prerequisites for its development

Among all the visual arts of ancient civilizations, the art of ancient Greece, in particular, its sculpture, occupies a very special place. The living body, capable of any muscular work, the Greeks put above all. The lack of clothes shocked no one. Everything was treated too simply to be ashamed of anything. And at the same time, of course, chastity did not lose from this.

1.2 Sculpture of Greece in the archaic era

The archaic period is the period of the formation of ancient Greek sculpture. The desire of the sculptor to convey the beauty of the ideal human body, which was fully manifested in the works of a later era, is already understandable, but it was still too difficult for the artist to move away from the form of a stone block, and the figures of this period are always static.

The first monuments of ancient Greek sculpture of the archaic era are determined by the geometric style (VIII century). These are schematic figurines found in Athens, Olympia , in Boeotia. The archaic era of ancient Greek sculpture falls on the 7th - 6th centuries. (early archaic - about 650 - 580 BC; high - 580 - 530; late - 530 - 500/480). The beginning of monumental sculpture in Greece dates back to the middle of the 7th century. BC e. and is characterized by orientalizing styles, of which the most important was Daedalian, associated with the name of the semi-mythical sculptor Daedalus . The circle of "Dedalian" sculpture includes a statue of Artemis of Delos and a female statue of Cretan work, stored in the Louvre ("Lady of Oxer"). The middle of the 7th century BC e. dated and the first kuros . The first sculptural temple decoration dates back to the same time. - reliefs and statues from Prinia in Crete. In the future, the sculptural decoration fills the fields allocated in the temple by its very design - the pediments and metopes V Doric temple, continuous frieze (zophor) - in Ionic. The earliest pediment compositions in ancient Greek sculpture come from the Athenian Acropolis. and from the Temple of Artemis on the island of Kerkyra (Corfu). Tombstone, dedication and cult statues are represented in the archaic by the type of kouros and bark . Archaic reliefs adorn the bases of statues, pediments and metopes of temples (later round sculpture replaced reliefs in pediments), tomb steles . Among the famous monuments of archaic round sculpture is the head of Hera, found near her temple in Olympia, the statue of Cleobis and Beaton from Delph, Moskhofor ("Taurus") from the Athenian Acropolis, Hera of Samos , statues from Didyma, Nikka Archerma and others. The last statue shows an archaic scheme of the so-called "kneeling run", used to depict a flying or running figure. In archaic sculpture, a number of other conventions are adopted - for example, the so-called "archaic smile" on the faces of archaic sculptures.

The sculpture of the archaic era is dominated by statues of slender naked youths and draped young girls - kouros and bark. Neither childhood nor old age then attracted the attention of artists, because only in mature youth are the vital forces in their prime and balance. Early Greek art creates images of Men and Women in their ideal form. In that era, spiritual horizons expanded extraordinarily, a person, as it were, felt himself standing face to face with the universe and wanted to comprehend its harmony, the secret of its integrity. Details eluded, ideas about the specific "mechanism" of the universe were the most fantastic, but the pathos of the whole, the consciousness of universal interconnection - that was what constituted the strength of the philosophy, poetry and art of archaic Greece *. Just as philosophy, then still close to poetry, shrewdly guessed the general principles of development, and poetry - the essence of human passions, fine art created a generalized human appearance. Let's look at the kouros, or, as they are sometimes called, the "archaic Apollos." It is not so important whether the artist really intended to portray Apollo, or a hero, or an athlete. The man is young, naked, and his chaste nakedness does not need bashful covers. He always stands straight, his body is permeated with readiness to move. The construction of the body is shown and emphasized with the utmost clarity; it is immediately clear that long muscular legs can bend at the knees and run, the abdominal muscles can tense up, the chest can swell in deep breathing. The face does not express any specific experience or individual character traits, but the possibilities of various experiences are hidden in it. And the conditional "smile" - slightly raised corners of the mouth - is only the possibility of a smile, a hint of the joy of being, inherent in this, as if a newly created person.

Kouros statues were created mainly in areas where the Dorian style dominated, that is, on the territory of mainland Greece; female statues - kora - mainly in Asia Minor and island cities, centers of the Ionian style. Beautiful female figures were found during excavations of the archaic Athenian Acropolis, built in the VI century BC. e., when Pisistratus ruled there, and destroyed during the war with the Persians. For twenty-five centuries marble crusts were buried in the "Persian rubbish"; finally they were taken out of there, half-broken, but not having lost their extraordinary charm. Perhaps some of them were performed by Ionic masters invited by Peisistratus to Athens; their art influenced Attic sculpture, which now combines the features of Doric austerity with Ionian grace. In the bark of the Athenian Acropolis, the ideal of femininity is expressed in its pristine purity. The smile is bright, the gaze is trusting and, as it were, joyfully amazed at the spectacle of the world, the figure is chastely draped with a peplo - a veil, or a light garment - a chiton (in the archaic era, female figures, unlike male figures, were not yet depicted naked), hair flowing over the shoulders with curly strands. These kora stood on plinths in front of the temple of Athena, holding an apple or a flower in their hand.

Archaic sculptures (as well as classical ones, by the way) were not as uniformly white as we imagine them now. Many have traces of paint. The marble girls' hair was golden, their cheeks pink, their eyes blue. Against the background of the cloudless sky of Hellas, all this should have looked very festive, but at the same time strict, thanks to the clarity, composure and constructiveness of forms and silhouettes. There was no excessive flamboyance and variegation. The search for rational foundations of beauty, harmony based on measure and number, is a very important moment in the aesthetics of the Greeks. The Pythagorean philosophers sought to capture the natural numerical relationships in musical consonances and in the arrangement of heavenly bodies, believing that musical harmony corresponds to the nature of things, the cosmic order, "the harmony of the spheres." Artists were looking for mathematically adjusted proportions of the human body and the "body" of architecture. In this, early Greek art is fundamentally different from the Cretan-Mycenaean art, which is alien to any mathematics.

Very lively genre scene: Thus, in the era of the archaic, the foundations of ancient Greek sculpture, the directions and options for its development were laid. Even then, the main goals of sculpture, the aesthetic ideals and aspirations of the ancient Greeks were clear. In later periods, the development and improvement of these ideals and the skill of ancient sculptors takes place.

1.3 Classical Greek sculpture

The classical period of ancient Greek sculpture falls on the 5th - 4th centuries BC. (early classic or "strict style" - 500/490 - 460/450 BC; high - 450 - 430/420 BC; "rich style" - 420 - 400/390 BC, late classic - 400/390 - OK. 320 AD BC e.). At the turn of two eras - archaic and classical - there is a sculptural decoration of the temple of Athena Aphaia on the island of Aegina . The sculptures of the western pediment date back to the time of the foundation of the temple (510 - 500 years BC BC), sculptures of the second eastern, replacing the former ones, - to the early classical time (490 - 480 BC). The central monument of ancient Greek sculpture of the early classics is the pediments and metopes of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia (about 468 - 456 BC e.). Another significant work of the early classics - the so-called "Throne of Ludovisi", decorated with reliefs. A number of bronze originals have also come from this time - the Delphic Charioteer, statue of Poseidon from Cape Artemisium, Bronzes from Riace . The largest sculptors of the early classics - Pythagoras Rhegian, Calamis and Myron . We judge the work of the famous Greek sculptors mainly by literary evidence and later copies of their works. High classics is represented by the names of Phidias and Polykleitos . Its short-term heyday is associated with work on the Athenian Acropolis, that is, with the sculptural decoration of the Parthenon. (the pediments, metopes and zophoros came, 447 - 432 BC). The pinnacle of ancient Greek sculpture was, apparently, chrysoelephantine statues of Athena Parthenos and Zeus Olympus by Phidias (both have not been preserved). "Rich style" is characteristic of the works of Callimachus, Alkamen, Agoracritus and other sculptors of the 5th century. BC e .. Its characteristic monuments are the reliefs of the balustrade of the small temple of Nike Apteros on the Athenian Acropolis (about 410 BC) and a number of tomb stelae, among which the Gegeso stele is most famous . The most important works of ancient Greek sculpture of the late classics are the decoration of the temple of Asclepius in Epidaurus (about 400 - 375 BC), the temple of Athena Alei in Tegea (about 370 - 350 BC), the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus (about 355 - 330 BC) and the Mausoleum in Halicarnassus (c. 350 BC), on the sculptural decoration of which Skopas, Briaxides, Timothy worked and Leohar . The statues of Apollo Belvedere are also attributed to the latter. and Diana of Versailles . There are also a number of bronze originals of the 4th century BC. BC e. The largest sculptors of the late classics are Praxitel, Skopas and Lysippus, largely anticipating the subsequent era of Hellenism.

Greek sculpture partially survived in fragments and fragments. Most of the statues are known to us from Roman copies, which were performed in many, but did not convey the beauty of the originals. Roman copyists coarsened and dried them, and turning bronze products into marble, disfigured them with clumsy props. The large figures of Athena, Aphrodite, Hermes, Satyr, which we now see in the halls of the Hermitage, are only pale rehashings of Greek masterpieces. You pass them almost indifferently and suddenly stop in front of some head with a broken nose, with a damaged eye: this is a Greek original! And the amazing power of life suddenly wafts from this fragment; the marble itself is different than in Roman statues - not dead white, but yellowish, transparent, luminous (the Greeks still rubbed it with wax, which gave the marble a warm tone). So gentle are the melting transitions of chiaroscuro, so noble is the soft modeling of the face, that one involuntarily recalls the delights of Greek poets: these sculptures really breathe, they really are alive *. In the sculpture of the first half of the century, when there were wars with the Persians, a courageous, strict style prevailed. Then a statuary group of tyrannicides was created: a mature husband and a young man, standing side by side, make an impulsive movement forward, the younger one raises the sword, the older one shields it with a cloak. This is a monument to historical figures - Harmodius and Aristogeiton, who killed the Athenian tyrant Hipparchus a few decades earlier - the first political monument in Greek art. At the same time, it expresses the heroic spirit of resistance and love of freedom that flared up in the era of the Greco-Persian wars. “They are not slaves to mortals, they are not subject to anyone,” says the Athenians in the tragedy of Aeschylus “Persians”. Battles, skirmishes, exploits of heroes... The art of the early classics is full of these warlike plots. On the pediments of the temple of Athena in Aegina - the struggle of the Greeks with the Trojans. On the western pediment of the temple of Zeus at Olympia - the struggle of the Lapiths with the centaurs, on the metopes - all twelve labors of Hercules. Another favorite complex of motives is gymnastic competitions; in those distant times, physical fitness, mastery of body movements were of decisive importance for the outcome of battles, so athletic games were far from just entertainment. The themes of hand-to-hand fights, equestrian competitions, running competitions, discus throwing taught the sculptors to depict the human body in dynamics. The archaic stiffness of the figures was overcome. Now they are acting, moving; complex poses, bold angles, and sweeping gestures appear. The brightest innovator was the Attic sculptor Myron. Miron's main task was to express the movement as fully and strongly as possible. Metal does not allow for such precise and fine work as marble, and perhaps that is why he turned to finding the rhythm of movement. The balance, the majestic "ethos", is preserved in classical sculpture of a strict style. The movement of the figures is neither chaotic, nor overly excited, nor too swift. Even in the dynamic motives of a fight, running, falling, the feeling of "Olympic calmness", integral plastic completeness, self-isolation is not lost.

Athena, which he made by order of Plataea and which cost this city very dearly, strengthened the fame of the young sculptor. A colossal statue of patron Athena was commissioned for him for the Acropolis. It reached 60 feet in height and exceeded all the neighboring buildings; from a distance, from the sea, she shone like a golden star and reigned over the whole city. It was not acrolithic (composite), like Plataean, but all cast in bronze. Another statue of the Acropolis, Athena the Virgin, made for the Parthenon, consisted of gold and ivory. Athena was depicted in a battle suit, in a golden helmet with a high-relief sphinx and vultures on the sides. In one hand she held a spear, in the other a figure of victory. At her feet was a snake, the guardian of the Acropolis. This statue is considered the best assurance of Phidias after his Zeus. It served as the original for countless copies. But the height of perfection from all the works of Phidias is considered to be his Olympian Zeus. It was the greatest work of his life: the Greeks themselves gave him the palm. He made an irresistible impression on his contemporaries.

Zeus was depicted on a throne. In one hand he held a scepter, in the other - the image of victory. The body was made of ivory, the hair was golden, the mantle was golden, enameled. The composition of the throne included ebony, bone, and precious stones. The walls between the legs were painted by Phidias' cousin, Panen; the foot of the throne was a marvel of sculpture. The admiration of the Greeks for the beauty and wise structure of the living body was so great that they aesthetically thought of it only in statuary completeness and completeness, allowing one to appreciate the majesty of posture, the harmony of body movements. But still, expressiveness was not so much in facial expressions as in body movements. Looking at the mysteriously serene moira of the Parthenon, at the swift, frisky Nika untying her sandal, we almost forget that their heads have been beaten off - the plasticity of their figures is so eloquent.

Indeed, the bodies of Greek statues are unusually inspired. The French sculptor Rodin said of one of them: "This youthful torso without a head smiles more joyfully at light and spring than eyes and lips could do." Movements and postures are in most cases simple, natural and not necessarily associated with something sublime. The heads of Greek statues, as a rule, are impersonal, that is, they are little individualized, reduced to a few variations of the general type, but this general type has a high spiritual capacity. In the Greek type of face, the idea of ​​"human" in its ideal version triumphs. The face is divided into three parts of equal length: forehead, nose and lower part. Correct, gentle oval. The straight line of the nose continues the line of the forehead and forms a perpendicular to the line drawn from the beginning of the nose to the opening of the ear (right facial angle). Oblong section of fairly deep-seated eyes. A small mouth, full bulging lips, the upper lip is thinner than the lower and has a beautiful smooth neckline like a cupid's bow. The chin is large and round. Wavy hair softly and tightly fits the head, without interfering with the rounded shape of the skull. This classical beauty may seem monotonous, but, being an expressive "natural image of the spirit", it lends itself to variation and is able to embody various types of the ancient ideal. A little more energy in the warehouse of the lips, in the protruding chin - we have a strict virgin Athena in front of us. There is more softness in the outlines of the cheeks, the lips are slightly half-open, the eye sockets are shaded - we have before us the sensual face of Aphrodite. The oval of the face is closer to a square, the neck is thicker, the lips are larger - this is already the image of a young athlete. And the basis remains the same strictly proportional classic look.

After the war .... The characteristic posture of a standing figure changes. In the archaic era, the statues stood completely straight, frontally. A mature classic revitalizes and animates them with balanced, flowing movements, maintaining balance and stability. And the statues of Praxiteles - the resting Satyr, Apollo Saurokton - lean with lazy grace on pillars, without them they would have to fall. The hip on one side is very strongly arched, and the shoulder is lowered low towards the hip - Rodin compares this position of the body with a harmonica, when the bellows are compressed on one side and moved apart on the other. For balance, an external support is needed. This is the pose of dreamy relaxation. Praxiteles follows the traditions of Polykleitos, uses the motives of movements found by him, but develops them in such a way that a different inner content already shines through in them. The “wounded Amazon” Polikletai also leans on a half-column, but she could stand without it, her strong, energetic body, even suffering from a wound, stands firmly on the ground. Apollo Praxiteles is not struck by an arrow, he himself aims at a lizard running along a tree trunk - the action, it would seem, requires strong-willed composure, nevertheless, his body is unstable, like a swaying stalk. And this is not an accidental detail, not a whim of the sculptor, but a kind of new canon in which the changed view of the world finds expression. However, not only the nature of movements and postures changed in the sculpture of the 4th century BC. e. Praxiteles' circle of favorite topics becomes different, he moves away from heroic plots into the "light world of Aphrodite and Eros." He carved the famous statue of Aphrodite of Cnidus. Praxiteles and the artists of his circle did not like to depict the muscular torsos of athletes; they were attracted by the delicate beauty of the female body with soft flowing volumes. They preferred the type of youth, - distinguished by "the first youth with effeminate beauty." Praxiteles was famous for the special softness of modeling and the skill of processing the material, the ability to convey the warmth of a living body in cold marble2.

The only surviving original of Praxiteles is the marble statue of Hermes with Dionysus, found in Olympia. Naked Hermes, leaning on a tree trunk, where his cloak was carelessly thrown, holds little Dionysus on one bent arm, and in the other a bunch of grapes, to which a child reaches (the hand holding the grapes is lost). All the charm of the pictorial processing of marble is in this statue, especially in the head of Hermes: the transitions of light and shadow, the subtlest “sfumato” (haze), which, many centuries later, Leonardo da Vinci achieved in painting. All other works of the master are known only from references to ancient authors and later copies. But the spirit of Praxiteles' art wafts over the 4th century BC. e., and best of all it can be felt not in Roman copies, but in small Greek plastic, in Tanagra clay figurines. They were produced at the end of the century in large quantities, it was a kind of mass production with the main center in Tanagra. (A very good collection of them is kept in the Leningrad Hermitage.) Some figurines reproduce the well-known large statues, others simply give various free variations of the draped female figure. The living grace of these figures, dreamy, thoughtful, playful, is an echo of Praxiteles' art.

1.4 Sculpture of Hellenistic Greece

The very concept of "Hellenism" contains an indirect indication of the victory of the Hellenic principle. Even in the remote regions of the Hellenistic world, in Bactria and Parthia (present-day Central Asia), ancient forms of art appear in a peculiar way. And Egypt is difficult to recognize, its new city of Alexandria is already a real enlightened center of ancient culture, where exact sciences, the humanities, and philosophical schools, originating from Pythagoras and Plato, flourish. Hellenistic Alexandria gave the world the great mathematician and physicist Archimedes, geometer Euclid, Aristarchus of Samos, who eighteen centuries before Copernicus proved that the Earth revolves around the Sun. The cabinets of the famous Library of Alexandria, marked with Greek letters, from alpha to omega, kept hundreds of thousands of scrolls - "writings that shone in all areas of knowledge." There stood the grandiose Pharos lighthouse, ranked among the seven wonders of the world; Museyon was created there, the palace of the muses - the prototype of all future museums. Compared to this rich and opulent port city, the capital of Ptolemaic Egypt, the city of the Greek metropolis, even Athens must have looked modest. But these modest, small cities were the main sources of the cultural treasures that Alexandria kept and revered, those traditions that continued to be followed. If Hellenistic science owed much to the heritage of the Ancient East, then the plastic arts retained a predominantly Greek character.

The main formative principles came from the Greek classics, the content became different. There was a decisive demarcation of public and private life. In the Hellenistic monarchies, the cult of the sole ruler, equated with a deity, is established, similar to how it was in the ancient Eastern despotisms. But the resemblance is relative: the “private person”, whom political storms do not touch or only slightly touch, is far from being as impersonal as in the ancient eastern states. He has his own life: he is a merchant, he is an entrepreneur, he is an official, he is a scientist. In addition, he is often of Greek origin - after the conquests of Alexander, the mass migration of Greeks to the east began - he is not alien to the concepts of human dignity, brought up by Greek culture. Let him be removed from power and state affairs - his isolated private world requires and finds for itself an artistic expression, the basis of which are the traditions of the late Greek classics, reworked in the spirit of greater intimacy and genre. And in the art of "state", official, in large public buildings and monuments, the same traditions are processed, on the contrary, in the direction of pomposity.

Pomp and intimacy are opposite traits; Hellenistic art is full of contrasts - gigantic and miniature, ceremonial and domestic, allegorical and natural. The world has become more complex, more diverse aesthetic demands. The main trend is a departure from a generalized human type to an understanding of a person as a concrete, individual being, and hence the increasing attention to his psychology, interest in events, and a new vigilance to national, age, social and other signs of personality. But since all this was expressed in a language inherited from the classics, which did not set such tasks for itself, a certain inorganism is felt in the innovative works of the Hellenistic era, they do not achieve the integrity and harmony of their great forerunners. The portrait head of the heroized statue of the Diadochus does not fit with his naked torso, which repeats the type of a classical athlete. The dramatic nature of the multi-figured sculptural group "Farnese Bull" is contradicted by the "classical" representativeness of the figures, their poses and movements are too beautiful and smooth to be believed in the truth of their experiences. In numerous park and chamber sculptures, the traditions of Praxiteles become smaller: Eros, “the great and powerful god,” turns into a playful, playful Cupid; Apollo - in the coquettishly pampered Apollono; strengthening the genre is not going to their advantage. And the well-known Hellenistic statues of old women carrying provisions, a drunken old woman, an old fisherman with a flabby body lack the power of figurative generalization; art masters these types, new to it, outwardly, without penetrating into the depths - after all, the classical heritage did not give the key to them. The statue of Aphrodite, traditionally called the Venus de Milo, was found in 1820 on the island of Melos and immediately gained worldwide fame as a perfect creation of Greek art. This high assessment was not shaken by many later finds of Greek originals - Aphrodite of Milos occupies a special place among them. Executed, apparently, in the II century BC. e. (by the sculptor Agesander or Alexander, as the half-erased inscription on the plinth says), she bears little resemblance to her contemporary statues depicting the goddess of love. Hellenistic Aphrodites most often ascended to the type of Aphrodite of Cnidus Praxiteles, making her sensually seductive, even slightly cutesy; such, for example, is the well-known Aphrodite of Medicea. Aphrodite of Milos, only half naked, draped to the hips, is strict and sublimely calm. She embodies not so much the ideal of female beauty, but the ideal of a person in a general and higher sense. The Russian writer Gleb Uspensky found a good expression: the ideal of a “straight man.” The statue is well preserved, but its arms are broken off. Much speculation has been made about what these hands were doing: Was the goddess holding an apple? or a mirror? or did she hold the edge of her garment? A convincing reconstruction has not been found, in fact, there is no need for it. The "handlessness" of Aphrodite of Milo over time has become, as it were, her attribute, it does not in the least interfere with her beauty and even enhances the impression of the majesty of the figure. And since not a single intact Greek statue has been preserved, it is in this partially damaged state that Aphrodite appears before us, like a “marble riddle”, conceived by antiquity, as a symbol of distant Hellas.

Another remarkable monument of Hellenism (of those that have come down to us, and how many have disappeared!) Is the altar of Zeus in Pergamon. The Pergamon school more than others gravitated towards pathos and drama, continuing the traditions of Scopas. Its artists did not always resort to mythological subjects, as they did in the classical era. On the square of the Pergamon Acropolis, there were sculptural groups that perpetuated a genuine historical event - the victory over the "barbarians", the Gallic tribes who besieged the Kingdom of Pergamon. Full of expression and dynamics, these groups are also notable for the fact that the artists pay tribute to the defeated, showing them both valiant and suffering. They depict a Gaul killing his wife and himself in order to avoid captivity and slavery; depict a mortally wounded Gaul, reclining on the ground with his head bowed low. It is immediately clear from his face and figure that he is a “barbarian”, a foreigner, but he dies a heroic death, and this is shown. In their art, the Greeks did not stoop to the point of humiliating their opponents; this feature of ethical humanism comes out with particular clarity when the opponents - the Gauls - are depicted realistically. After the campaigns of Alexander, in general, much has changed in relation to foreigners. As Plutarch writes, Alexander saw himself as the reconciler of the universe, "making everyone drink ... from the same cup of friendship and mixing together lives, morals, marriages and forms of life." Morals and forms of life, as well as forms of religion, really began to mix in the era of Hellenism, but friendship did not reign and peace did not come, strife and wars did not stop. The wars of Pergamum with the Gauls are only one of the episodes. When finally the victory over the Gauls was finally won, in honor of her, the altar of Zeus was erected, completed in 180 BC. e. This time, the long-term war with the "barbarians" appeared as gigantomachy - the struggle of the Olympic gods with the giants. According to ancient myth, giants - giants who lived far to the west, the sons of Gaia (Earth) and Uranus (Heaven) - rebelled against the Olympians, but were defeated by them after a fierce battle and buried under volcanoes, in the deep bowels of mother earth, from there they remind of themselves volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. A grandiose marble frieze, about 120 meters long, made in the technique of high relief, encircled the base of the altar. The remains of this structure were excavated in the 1870s; thanks to the painstaking work of the restorers, it was possible to connect thousands of fragments and get a fairly complete picture of the overall composition of the frieze. Mighty bodies pile up, intertwine, like a ball of snakes, defeated giants are tormented by shaggy-maned lions, dogs dig in their teeth, horses trample underfoot, but the giants fight fiercely, their leader Porfirion does not retreat before the Thunderer Zeus. The mother of the giants, Gaia, begs for mercy on her sons, but she is not heeded. The battle is terrible. There is something foreshadowing Michelangelo in the tense angles of the bodies, in their titanic power and tragic pathos. Although battles and skirmishes have been a frequent theme in ancient reliefs since the archaic, they have never been depicted in the same way as on the Pergamon altar - with such a shuddering sense of cataclysm, life-and-death battles, where all cosmic forces, all demons are involved. earth and sky. The structure of the composition has changed, it has lost its classical clarity, it has become swirling, confusing. Let us recall the figures of Scopas on the relief of the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus. They, with all their dynamism, are located in the same spatial plane, they are separated by rhythmic intervals, each figure has a certain independence, masses and space are balanced. The Pergamon frieze is different - those who fight closely here, the mass has suppressed space, and all the figures are so intertwined that they form a turbulent mess of bodies. And the bodies are still classically beautiful, “sometimes radiant, sometimes formidable, living, dead, triumphant, perishing figures,” as I. S. Turgenev said about them *. Beautiful Olympians, beautiful and their enemies. But the harmony of the spirit fluctuates. Faces distorted by suffering, deep shadows in the orbits of the eyes, serpentine hair... The Olympians still triumph over the forces of the underground elements, but this victory is not for long - the elemental principles threaten to blow up a harmonious, harmonious world. Just as the art of the Greek archaic should not be evaluated only as the first forerunners of the classics, and Hellenistic art as a whole cannot be considered a late echo of the classics, underestimating the fundamentally new that it brought. This new was associated with the expansion of the horizons of art, and with his inquisitive interest in the human person and the specific, real conditions of her life. Hence, first of all, the development of the portrait, the individual portrait, which was almost unknown to the high classics, and the late classics were only on the outskirts of it. Hellenistic artists, even making portraits of people who had not been alive for a long time, gave them a psychological interpretation and sought to reveal the uniqueness of both external and internal appearance. Not contemporaries, but descendants left us the faces of Socrates, Aristotle, Euripides, Demosthenes and even the legendary Homer, an inspired blind storyteller. The portrait of an unknown old philosopher is amazing in its realism and expression - apparently, an irreconcilable passionate polemicist, whose wrinkled face with sharp features has nothing to do with the classical type. Previously, it was considered a portrait of Seneca, but the famous Stoic lived later than this bronze bust was sculpted.

For the first time, a child with all the anatomical features of childhood and with all the charm inherent in him becomes the subject of plastic surgery. In the classical era, young children were depicted, if at all, as miniature adults. Even in Praxiteles, in the Hermes with Dionysus group, Dionysus bears little resemblance to a baby in his anatomy and proportions. It seems that only now they noticed that the child is a very special creature, frisky and crafty, with his own special habits; noticed and so captivated by him that the very god of love Eros began to be represented as a child, laying the foundation for a tradition that has established itself for centuries. Chubby curly kids of Hellenistic sculptors are busy with all sorts of tricks: they ride a dolphin, fiddle with birds, even strangle snakes (this is little Hercules). The statue of a boy fighting a goose was especially popular. Such statues were placed in parks, were the decoration of fountains, were placed in the sanctuaries of Asclepius, the god of healing, and sometimes were used for tombstones.

Conclusion

We examined the sculpture of Ancient Greece throughout the entire period of its development. We saw the whole process of its formation, flourishing and decline - the whole transition from strict, static and idealized archaic forms through the balanced harmony of classical sculpture to the dramatic psychologism of Hellenistic statues. The sculpture of Ancient Greece was rightfully considered a model, an ideal, a canon for many centuries, and now it does not cease to be recognized as a masterpiece of world classics. Nothing like this has been achieved before or since. All modern sculpture can be considered, to one degree or another, a continuation of the traditions of ancient Greece. The sculpture of Ancient Greece in its development has passed a difficult path, paving the way for the development of plastic art of subsequent eras in various countries. At a later time, the traditions of ancient Greek sculpture were enriched with new developments and achievements, while the ancient canons served as the necessary basis, the basis for the development of plastic art in all subsequent eras.